MSI MEG X870E Ace Max Review - A baby Godlike

TweakTown Rating: 93%

Our Verdict

Top-class features, build quality and design make the MSI X870E Ace Max a compelling option, without the halo-tier price.

Pros

• Loads of fast USB ports, including dual USB4
• Excellent networking options
• Powerful VRM
• 64MB BIOS - ready for Zen 6 and beyond
• 60W PD USB support and third PCIe 5.0 expansion slot

Cons

• Expensive
• Primary M.2 heatsink isn't brilliant

Should you buy it?

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Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

A couple of months back, we reviewed MSI's MEG X870E Godlike X motherboard. That board has almost every conceivable feature you can get on a 2026 consumer motherboard. But at over $1,600, it's well out of reach of most. However, it's not the only member of MSI's MEG range of boards. Sitting below it is the newly released MSI MEG X870E Ace Max. It's equipped with most of the same features while giving up a few, like the M.2 add-in card and the LCD Dynamic Dashboard. But the Ace Max is nearly $1,000 cheaper. That's a little bit more than pocket change!

The X870E Ace Max is a genuinely high-end motherboard. It's got 10G LAN, a stupendously powerful VRM, high-end audio with a dedicated DAC, 320MHz WiFi 7, lots of fast USB ports, and support for up to five M.2 SSDs. One of its touted features is a 64MB BIOS ROM, which means it is well prepared to accept future Zen 6 CPUs. If you're going to drop big money on a motherboard, having that guaranteed future support is great for peace of mind.

Of course, the X870E Ace Max supports AMD AM5 Ryzen 7000, 8000, and 9000 series CPUs. It supports up to 256GB of memory and comes with a range of ease-of-use features that MSI calls EZ DIY.

The MSI MEG X870E Ace Max is currently available for $649. That's a pretty penny to be sure, but compared to halo-tier boards like the ASUS ROG X870E Extreme, X870E AORUS Xtreme AI Top, and MSI's own X870E Godlike X, the Ace is a relative bargain.

Packaging, Accessories, and Overview

Packaging and Accessories

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The box containing the X870E Ace Max provides a few hints about the board's capabilities. The networking options, USB4, and 64MB BIOS are prominently displayed. Of course, it's AI-ready, but isn't everything these days? Marketers gotta market.

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The rear of the box shows off the board's key features, along with a more comprehensive specification rundown and a look at the rear I/O, which is packed to nearly overflowing. More on that later.

Further Socket AM5 Reading – Our Latest Reviews

• ASRock X870 Taichi Creator Motherboard Review - The creator's Taichi
• Sapphire Nitro+ B850A WiFi 7 review - Welcome back to the motherboard market!
• MSI MEG X870E Godlike X Edition Review - A feature-complete flagship for the ultra enthusiast

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The board comes with a long list of accessories. Really, the only notable omission is an M.2 add-in card, which several past Ace boards included. That is now exclusive to the Godlike.

In the first picture, we have a WiFi antenna, a USB drive with drivers and utilities, four SATA cables, an M.2 clip-removal tool, and a set of M.2 screws.

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Next up, there's a cable that MSI calls the EZ-Front Panel cable. It connects to a dedicated 7-pin header on the motherboard. The cable integrates a system fan and ARGB header into one, which will come in handy for those interested in really neat builds. The second EZ cable combines a system fan, 5V ARGB, and a USB 2.0 header. This cable can be used with select MSI liquid coolers that require USB signal communication.

You also get a 3-in-1 ARGB extension cable, stickers, a quick installation guide, a welcome card, and regulatory notices.

Motherboard Overview

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The X870E Ace Max is a lovely-looking board. The gold highlights add a touch of class without being obnoxious. The MSI dragon logo atop the rear I/O features ARGB lighting with an infinity effect, while the word Ace on the primary M.2 heatsink also supports ARGB control. These can be controlled via MSI's Mystic Light app, which is a part of its broader MSI Center application.

Like most modern motherboards, you get three ARGB headers and one for an additional RGB strip.

Aside from the aforementioned headers for use with the bundled cables, you also get headers for up to four USB 2.0 ports, four USB 5Gbps ports, and a single Type-C 20Gbps port. The 20Gbps port supports a substantial 60W PD. You'll need to connect a 6-pin PCIe power cable to the connector next to the header to gain 60W support.

Other key headers, switches, and buttons include eight fan headers, power and reset buttons, voltage check points, a header for use with MSI's Tuning Controller (bundled with Unify-X boards), a debug LED readout, and Direct OC jumpers. There's also an auxiliary 8-pin PCIe power connector for use with thirsty graphics cards.

MSI touts the X870E Ace Max's 64MB BIOS ROM. As the list of AM5 CPUs grows longer, a larger BIOS is needed to maintain support for all of them. With Zen 6 expected to launch later this year, this little feature will give users confidence that their board will support Zen 6 chips. One may recall the problems some AM4 boards had when Ryzen 5000 chips rolled out. Some support for early AM4 chips had to be removed to support them.

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The rear of the board is covered by a robust backplate. It adds rigidity to the board and helps to cool the rear of the VRM subsystem.

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Four DIMM slots support up to DDR5-9000+ speeds in a dual-channel, single-rank configuration (with an 8000-series CPU). It is slightly lower for 9000-series CPUs at 8400+ MT/s. Interestingly, MSI lists unofficial support for CUDIMM memory. While many boards offer CUDIMM support in bypass mode, clock-driver support is not available due to AMD's I/O tile limitations. Zen 6 is rumored to introduce a new I/O die with full CUDIMM support, so perhaps the X870E Ace Max will fully support CUDIMMs in the future. That would open the way to DDR5-10000+ if such support eventuates! In total, the board will support up to 256GB of memory, at a more worldly 6400 MT/s.

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Storage-wise, the X870E Ace Max includes five M.2 slots, two of which support PCIe 5.0. The other three slots are connected to the chipset and support PCIe 4.0. The primary slot is cooled by its own dedicated heatsink, which is easy to release and attach. The other three are cooled by a single large plate that also features a quick-release mechanism. It's also easy to remove and reattach.

The board offers two PCIe 5.0 x16 slots (x16 / x8 respectively) and another PCIe 5.0 x4 slot. If you're wondering how that's possible given CPU lane limitations, it's because the primary M.2 slot and the PCIe 5.0 x4 slot share bandwidth. Still, it's good to give users the option of using a full-speed PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSD, or an alternative high-speed PCIe add-in card. You can use both if you don't mind the primary M.2 slot dropping to x2 speed.

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The fifth slot is located on the rear of the board. It doesn't have its own heatsink, so it's best to use a drive with its own heatsink, or perhaps a slower PCIe 3.0 drive for cold storage. Otherwise, it could get a bit toasty back there.

Four SATA ports join the five M.2 slots.

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The X870E Ace Max features a robust 18+2+1-phase VRM with 110A stages, so even if you want to thrash a chip with liquid nitrogen, the board will handle it. Even if Zen 6 CPUs come with a higher TDP, the Ace Max will handle them with ease.

A beefy VRM requires beefy heatsinks. I love it when manufacturers include finned heatsinks. They increase surface area significantly for more effective heat dissipation. And they can look good at the same time! The heatsinks include direct-touch heatpipes and high-quality thermal pads. The heatsink assembly proved very effective in our testing.

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The rear I/O of the X870E Ace Max is absolutely packed. We'll begin with the USB complement, which starts with dual USB4 Type-C ports, both of which support DP 1.4a. That'll give you triple-monitor support alongside the included HDMI 2.1 port. The USB4 ports are joined by no less than 11 10Gbps ports, two of which are Type-C.

MSI opted for a Marvell AQC113CS controller for the single 10G LAN port. It's joined by a Realtek RTL8126 5G controller. The WiFi 7 controller supports 320MHz connections supporting up to 5.8Gbps of bandwidth. That's top-class networking for a 2026 consumer motherboard.

Next are the audio ports, which consist of 3.5mm line-in and line-out ports and S/PDIF. These are driven by a Realtek ALC4082 codec. The X870E Ace Max also includes an ESS Sabre ES9219Q DAC.

Finally, we come to the bank of three buttons in the middle. These include a CMOS clear button and a BIOS flashback button. The third button is MSI's Smart Button. It can be programmed via the BIOS to toggle the LEDs on or off, reset the system to safe mode, or set all fans to full speed. Some MSI cases support this function as well.

UEFI, Software and Test System

UEFI

Starting with the 800-series, MSI introduced a new UEFI design. In my opinion, it is the best-looking BIOS design of all the big four manufacturers. It's well laid out and easy on the eye, with attractive fonts and contrast.

MSI has incorporated all of its software modules into one app, which it calls the MSI Center. There's a lot of fluff in there that most users won't use, but it's modular, so you only need to download the apps you need. Mystic Light ARGB control, and the system monitoring and analysis options are modules worth considering. I like that it has a dark mode too.

Test System

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X - Buy from Amazon
• GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3X - Buy from Amazon
• RAM: G.Skill Trident Z Neo RGB 2x16GB DDR5-6000 CL30 - Buy from Amazon
• Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL360 Flux - Buy from Amazon
• OS Storage: Teamgroup T-Force Z540 2TB - Buy from Amazon
• Power Supply: Super Flower Leadex Titanium 850W - Buy from Amazon
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro - Buy from Amazon

Benchmarks - Rendering and Encoding

Cinebench 2024

Cinebench 2024 is a reliable, widely used benchmark that measures both single- and multi-threaded performance. Note that all our benchmark testing used the latest available Windows updates.

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The X870E Ace Max performed well, achieving 2,291 in the nT test and 140 in the 1T test. The 1T result is strong for a Ryzen 9 9950X with our test settings.

Blender

A rendering application like Blender is just one of many reasons a user might consider a high-core-count CPU, such as the Ryzen 9 9950X. We use the Whitelands demo file and record how long it takes to render the image.

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A result of 430 seconds is strong, even if a couple of seconds over a seven-minute test is minuscule.

Handbrake

Handbrake is a simple-to-use video encoding and transcoding application. Here, we convert a 4K movie trailer to 1080p. The results below show the average FPS, where a higher result indicates the task will take less time to complete.

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A result of 159.9 FPS is within touching distance of the lead boards.

Benchmarks - File Compression and Memory Latency

7Zip

7Zip is a commonly used free file compression and decompression app. It's very sensitive to changes in memory speed and latency, and scales with the number of CPU threads.

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A score of 229.56 BIPS is another strong result for the X870E Ace Max.

AIDA64 Memory Latency

Memory latency has been an area where Intel has traditionally held an advantage. Chiplet architectures inevitably add some latency compared to monolithic chips. The real-world benefits aren't that important, though.

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71.9 nanoseconds puts the X870E Ace Max a little behind the leaders in this test.

Benchmarks - PCMark and 3DMark

PCMark 10 Productivity

We'd love to use our PCs solely for leisure, but some of us have to work too! The PCMark 10 productivity test performs a series of tests using office productivity applications.

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Ultimately, all the tested boards are within a couple of percent of one another.

3DMark Storage

UL's newest 3DMark SSD Gaming Test is the most comprehensive SSD gaming test ever devised. It is superior to testing against games themselves because, as a trace, it is much more consistent than variations that will occur between runs of the actual game.

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The X870E Ace Max isn't far off the lead in this test.

3DMark Time Spy Extreme

Time Spy Extreme is losing favor as a graphics benchmark in favor of Speed Way and Steel Nomad, but its CPU test is still a good measure of multi-core performance.

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The differences between the boards are minor, with only a few hundred points separating them when measured by CPU score.

Benchmarks - Gaming

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is brutal on graphics cards, but when things like ray tracing are removed, it becomes more sensitive to CPU and memory performance differences.

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It's no surprise that the motherboard makes little difference in graphically limited scenarios.

Horizon Zero Dawn

When using the 'favor performance' preset, Horizon Zero Dawn can achieve high frame rates with powerful graphics cards.

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The differences here are negligible in percentage terms. If you're lucky enough to own an RTX 5090, the margins would be a little larger.

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition

Metro Exodus received an update that added improved DLSS support, enhanced ray tracing features, and variable rate shading, among other things. Still, with a powerful graphics card, it is affected by CPU and memory performance at 1080p, though less so with a card like the RTX 4070 Ti Super.

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If one extra frame makes any real difference, then the X870E Ace Max is the winner in this test.

VRM and SSD Temperatures

These tests are performed to show off the differences between each motherboard's cooling assemblies. Each board is subjected to a 20-minute Cinebench loop, while the SSD test records the peak temperature during the lengthy 3DMark Storage test.

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A peak temperature of 55 degrees shows off the effectiveness of finned heatsinks. The X870E Ace Max's strong VRM design and cooling are not remotely challenged by a Ryzen 9 9950X.

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While a temperature of 57 degrees is perfectly acceptable for a modern SSD, the X870E Ace Max lags a little behind the likes of the GIGABYTE X870 AORUS Elite's heatsink, which has a much larger surface area. The incorporation of ARGB into the primary M.2 heatsink surely doesn't help either.

Final Thoughts

The MSI MEG X870E Ace Max is one of the most feature-rich of all X870E motherboards. It's packed with expansion and connectivity options. Though a $649 motherboard is out of reach of most, it is significantly cheaper than the halo-tier boards. Those boards have a few extra bells, whistles, and bling, but once you near $1,000, you're into the realm of diminishing returns, and you're paying extra for fancy LED screens and bragging rights. The X870E Ace Max is a smarter high-end option for total system cost.

The X870E Ace includes 10G LAN, 320MHz WiFi 7, 60W PD, a VRM that's hard to beat, support for five M.2 SSDs, and three PCIe 5.0 slots. That extra slot might come in particularly handy if you already have an M.2 add-in card.

The price argument goes both ways, though. The X870E AORUS Master X3D is a compelling option at around $589, while the ASUS Crosshair X870E Hero can be found at discounted prices following the release of the refreshed Dark Hero model. Whichever way you go will probably come down to brand preference more than anything else, or a specific feature, and aesthetic.

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If you're looking at motherboards in this price range, you'll already know what kinds of things you value in a board. If you're after connectivity and expansion potential above all else, there are relatively few options. Those looking to build a high-end AMD system paired with a high-end graphics card, while keeping an eye towards Zen 6, and who value excellent networking, classy audio, a refined and well-designed BIOS, and support for lots of high-speed USB devices, then you should strongly consider the MSI MEG X870E Ace Max.